Catholic Church to Inquire If Offending Irish Clergy Were Sent to Australia, ABC, May 21, 2009

Catholic Church to Inquire If Offending Irish Clergy Were Sent to Australia

ABC
May 21, 2009

http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2577491.htm

Mark ColvinMark Colvin presents PM Monday to Friday from 5:10pm on Radio National and 6:10pm on ABC Local Radio. Join Mark for the latest current affairs, wrapping the major stories of each day.

MARK COLVIN: The Catholic Church in Australia says it will contact the Irish Church to try to find out if any members of the clergy who abused children were sent to Australia to restart their lives.

A 10 year judicial inquiry in Ireland has found that between the 1920s and the 1980s, thousands of children in church run institutions were beaten, raped and humiliated, and that the church and state did nothing.

The report has stirred up distressing memories for victims in Australia who are demanding a similar investigation here.

Meredith Griffiths reports.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: The lengthy report on child abuse that's been released in Ireland says that children in church-run institutions lived in a climate of fear, created by excessive and arbitrary punishment at the hands of priests and nuns. It concluded that sexual abuse was endemic at boy's institutions.

It also says that many offending members of the clergy who were sent abroad where they were allowed to restart their lives without reference to their crimes. The Catholic Church here says it is possible that some came to Australia.

Sister Angela Ryan from the church's National Professional Standards Office says it started running background checks eight years ago.

What will the church be doing to cross check if any of the people that were complained about in Ireland were in fact sent out to Australia?

ANGELA RYAN: If we are aware of any people, we certainly look into the matter. We would be interested to know that. We can certainly so some looking at things.

We've got procedures in place for anybody who's moved now because we can actively work in that way. If there are people from the past who've been sent here, then we certainly would want to make sure.

And if people have been abused by any of those people I ask them to come forward.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: The Irish commission report did give anonymity to the people that were complained about.

ANGELA RYAN: It makes it very difficult for us to check.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: That is correct, but I did wonder though if, given you are still part of the global Catholic Church, there wouldn't be ways for the Catholic Church here to work with its colleagues in Ireland to find those things out, even if the names were kept among members of the church and not made public.

I mean, isn't there still a way you could find out if there were people that had come to Australia?

ANGELA RYAN: And if there are things that we can do we certainly will follow that through. In the past 12 months… yes, 12 months ago at a meeting I was given information about people who many years ago came from another overseas country; they were followed through.

I certainly will make some inquiries from the Irish to see what we can do.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: Psychologist Dr Michelle Mulvihill says any known perpetrators must be named publically

MICHELLE MULVIHILL: I wonder from a psychological point of view if it's not just facilitating the occurrence of abuse by not naming.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: She worked on a sexual abuse case involving the St John of God Brothers in Australian and New Zealand and says the church's systems of dealing with cases of sexual abuse are inadequate:

MICHELLE MULVIHILL: I will absolutely admit that much has taken place since the 1970s, when many complaints first came forward in the Australian church.

However, I think that when people are involved in sitting on their own matters, then you cannot honestly say that it's being managed. In other words, this is being managed by Catholics inside the Catholic Church.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: Many victims of child abuse at the hands the clergy in Australia are calling for a royal commission. John Hennessey says previous governments failed their duty of care to children

JOHN HENNESSEY: It's got to be documented because this is part of Australian history. The Australian Government, doesn't matter which brand they are - Liberal, Labor, what have you - they owe it to children of this country to bring out the truth, under oath, let everybody know, so please God this will never darken our shores again.

MEREDITH GRIFFITHS: John Hennessey spent 10 years at a Catholic institution in Western Australia where he says beatings and sexual abuse were rampant.

JOHN HENNESSEY: I will take unbearable pain to the grave with me. It's… you just… nobody could comprehend what happened to us because it was too personal, it was… and what made it harder, these were people of the cloth.

They'd get up on a pulpit and say God loved you and God shouldn't do this, people shouldn't do this - they were doing the exact opposite to what was in the bible.

MARK COLVIN: John Hennessey, a victim of abuse in a Catholic institution, ending that report by Meredith Griffiths.